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FATHER PETER MCVERRY has said that there is no chance that hotels will no longer be used to provide emergency accommodation for homeless families by the beginning of July.
Speaking to Ivan Yates on Newstalk, McVerry said that Housing Minister Simon Coveney is a “good man” but that the problem of homelessness is now “out of control”.
The homeless campaigner said that it is clear that Coveney’s proposals to alleviate the homelessness crisis “are just not working”.
Worsening problem
As recently as March, Coveney has reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring that hotels will no longer be used to house homeless families by July of this year.
The use of hotel and B&Bs to house homeless families has skyrocketed over the past number of years and the homelessness crisis has worsened in Dublin.
Latest figures from the Housing Department show that there 1091 homeless families with 2,046 children staying in emergency accommodation in Dublin in April. The overwhelming majority of these were staying in private hotels or B&Bs at a huge cost to the state.
Dublin City Council spent €40 million trying to house homeless families in hotels and B&Bs in 2016 alone.
Coveney first committed to ending the use of hotels to house homeless families by the middle of this year last summer in the Government’s Rebuilding Ireland Housing Action Plan.
Charity experts expressed serious doubt that this being possible at the time, however Coveney today remained resolute that the goal could be achieved.
“Out of control”
McVerry began by saying that getting homeless families out of hotels is “not going to happen by the first of July, that’s for sure”.
He began by praising Simon Coveney, saying he had “a lot of respect for him” and that he had “tried very hard to address this problem”.
It was clear, McVerry said, that these measures were simply not working. He said:
The Minister has produced very detailed comprehensive proposals to solve the problem but he produced those eight/nine months ago and the problem continues to get worse, so to my mind they’re just not working. So I think the problem out of control.
He said that the problem was primarily in the private rental sector with families made homeless either because “the rents have gone through the roof and they can no longer afford them”, “the banks have repossessed the home that they’re living in” or “the landlord wants to sell the house”.
Introducing caps on rising rents in line with inflation and legislation to prevent evictions would go some way towards alleviating the problems in the private rental sector, he said.
McVerry added that is essential that the government find the means to convert the empty houses and apartments around the country into available housing.
Advocating going down the “compulsory purchase route” of these empty units, he said “it’s that sort of radical action… that we need to solve what I believe is a problem that is now out of control”.
He concluded by drawing a comparison between the homelessness crisis now and during the Famine:
It’s absolutely absurd. This is like the famine times. People were evicted onto the street because they couldn’t pay the rent.
This FactCheck, from TheJournal.ie, examined an earlier claim from McVerry that there was more people homeless in Ireland now than at any point since the Famine. We rated the claim “mostly false”.
With reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald
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Anyone going to Re-open the inquest into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings that also happened in 1974? Or do they not matter?
@Pixie McMullen: actually pixie I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere on Leo’s 100 point plan-but we’re still waiting for him to get his finger out on no.1 on the plan so it’ll be another while yet.
@Adam O’Donoghue: he’s even promised to wear a pair of blue,white and red socks when it opens .
@Adam O’Donoghue: What is the reasoning behind this comment?
@Pixie McMullen: Different jurisdiction.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: it’s called having a sense of humour
@Adam O’Donoghue: But why red, white and blue? I presume you are referring to the colours on the Union Flag, but I don’t see any link, humorous or otherwise, between Leo Varadker and that flag. You might as well say black, yellow and red as a reference to Belgium. I don’t see any link and so fail to see the humour.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: no I mean the Dublin and Monaghan bomb was carried out by the British stage-the elephant in the room which is never discussed .
Everyone knows loyalist paramilitaries couldn’t make a firework never mind 3 significant and well coordinated bombs
@Adam O’Donoghue: *british state
@Adam O’Donoghue: And the ‘humorous’ link to Varadker is………..?
@sean o’dhubhghaill: that’s he hasten got the stones to put it up to the British.
The only reason he is so brave about Brexit is cause the Europeans have his back,he wouldn’t dare cross the British on his wee own,regardless of the fact they murdered 34 of his citizens
@Adam O’Donoghue: ‘His’ citizens? Surely you mean Irish citizens? After all, the bombings happened before he was born.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: have you got many more straws to clutch??i can’t be bothered dealing with pro FG lackeys
@sean o’dhubhghaill: are you Leo in disguise?
@Adam O’Donoghue: Surely a valid point comparing the phrase ‘his’ citizens to Irish citizens is a much smaller straw than his socks?
@Adam O’Donoghue: you need a few lessons on humour.
Met Paul Hill at a simple minds concert in New York years ago. Really nice guy. His book was very good as well. What they and the maguire family were put through was absolutely horrendous. Hopefully it never happens to anyone ever again.
@Joseph Devine: it’s happening as we speak
@John Murt: your probably right about that John unfortunately.
@John Murt: Where, whom, when, for what??
@wattsed56: runway at Shanon airport but they don’t have Irish surnames.
@wattsed56: leave it with me
@Joseph Devine: But the real perpetrators got a standing ovation at–at Oh what was it??
If I was a survivor or a grieving family member I would want this and a proper investigation. How hard must it be for them to know now that while they grieved or attempted to recover their government didn’t bother to do real police work but just torture and lock up people that they knew to be innocent.
@Carlin Ite: and Maggie Thatcher wasn’t even elected till 79
have your say